Short of Glory (26 page)

‘Don’t worry, she wasn’t shocked. Nothing you could do would shock Sarah. You’re white so you’re completely different. You can’t be moral or immoral, you can
only be a good or bad massa.’

‘Where did you learn Swahi?’

‘My husband had a farm, among other things. I went down there a lot and stayed after I’d had Belinda. My maid taught me Swahi but really I spoke Zulu better because that’s what
most of the Africans spoke. I spent a lot of time with them. There was nothing much else to do.’ She reached across and put her hand on his arm. ‘Why are you looking so
serious?’

He smiled and took her hand. ‘I didn’t know I was.’ In fact, he was wondering if she would again agree to go to bed with him or whether this had been a spontaneous opportunity
which, not having been properly taken, would not recur.

She finished her tea and said something in Zulu, rapid sounds interspersed with the clicking-tongue noises that people often make to horses. ‘That’s thank you for tea and
hospitality. Now I must go and see my little girl.’

‘Is she better?’ He had forgotten to ask earlier.

‘Yes, much. I’ve got my sister and her husband coming for dinner this evening. May we go?’

The Battenburg rush hour lasted only about thirty minutes and they were in any case driving against it. Patrick recalled Jim’s parting remark. ‘Did you tell Jim we were having
lunch?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did he mind?’

She looked straight ahead. ‘I think he does but he wouldn’t try to stop me.’

‘What if he knew what we did after lunch – or, rather, didn’t do?’

‘He might shoot us both.’ She looked at him. ‘It really matters to you whether we did or didn’t, doesn’t it?’

He tried to sound casual. ‘Well, yes and no. I mean, obviously it’s not all-important but on the other hand I wish we had.’

She pushed her fist against his shoulder. ‘You shouldn’t mind that much.’

He dropped her at her car. She searched her handbag for her keys. ‘When?’ he asked.

‘You’re the man of business. You tell me.’

‘Tomorrow night? The night after?’

Her manner became brightly and chillingly social. ‘No, look, ring me when you’ve got some things for Sarah to cook with.’ They kissed fleetingly. ‘Thank you for a lovely
lunch.’

He drove wretchedly back, convinced that she was no longer interested in him. When he arrived Sarah was feeding Snap, something he normally did because Sarah seemed to feel that feeding a dog
was degrading.

When she saw Patrick, though, she clasped one of his hands in both of hers and pressed it. ‘I must thank you, massa, for the lady speak Swahi.’

He joined his other hand to hers. ‘Did she speak it well?’

‘She speak very well. It is nice for me to hear Swahi. She is very good madam, I think.’ They discussed dinner. There was no shortage of food, only the wherewithal to cook it. She
would fry steak. As he was leaving the kitchen she took an envelope from her apron pocket. ‘Oh, I forget. A man bring this.’

It was his cheque to Jim Rissik for the bakkie, torn in half. There was no note. ‘Did you see him?’ he asked.

‘He was the policeman who come here before. I did not speak to him. He put it through the door.’

‘When?’

‘When you were upstairs with the madam.’ She smiled. ‘He did not wait. I think he is frightened of Snap.’

P
atrick drank wine and sat up late that night. Every tone, remark and gesture he recalled, even the most affectionate, was overwhelmed by
pessimism. When he went to his bed the width and comfort of it reminded him cruelly of her. Nevertheless, he slept.

It was Snap’s barking that woke him. He groped for the truncheon beneath the bed. Whoever packed Whelk’s belongings had missed it because it came reassuringly to hand. However, a
ring at the doorbell indicated lawful callers. He pulled on his trousers, then fumbled the key at the rape-gate, dropping it so that it bounced a couple of steps down the stairs. He had to lie on
his stomach and stretch his arm through the railings to reach it. The bell rang again.

The spy-hole showed the caller to be Jim Rissik. Patrick stood the truncheon against the wall and opened the door, holding Snap back by his studded collar.

Jim wore jeans and a crumpled white T-shirt. His arms were folded and there were drops of sweat on his face. The night was oppressively warm. ‘I want to talk,’ he said quietly.

The hall clock said ten past one. Patrick quietened Snap and opened the door fully.

‘I’m not sober. I won’t stay long.’

‘D’you want another drink?’

‘If you’re having one.’

They went into the living-room and Patrick poured two whiskies. Jim looked round. ‘I heard you had a clear-out.’

‘I thought you might know something about it.’

‘I’ve only just heard.’

Patrick tried to sound businesslike. ‘Sarah thought they were from the embassy. They told her they were. She didn’t see the van, though. But it suggests Whelk’s alive,
doesn’t it?’

‘Why?’

‘They knew what to take. He must’ve given them a list.’

‘I reckon he’s done a bunk, as I said before. Kidnappers wouldn’t have done this and thieves wouldn’t have known what to leave behind.’

‘Unless they were trying to make it look as though he’d done a bunk.’

Jim shook his head. ‘I’ll get descriptions from Sarah. Someone will have seen the van.’

There was a pause which Patrick was anxious to fill. ‘Was the letter about Chatsworth all right?’

‘Fine, fine.’ Jim looked at the wires running from the radio on the mantelpiece across the back of the sofa to the window. He stepped carefully over them, opened the window and stood
staring out. ‘I don’t like it when it’s close like this. Gets at you. It’ll rain soon, though. I like the rain.’

‘You look as if you’ve been running.’

‘That’s the drink. I must be sweating neat alcohol by now. Fine state for a policeman to drive in.’ He raised his glass and looked at it before drinking carefully. ‘Have
you changed your mind yet about the way we do things in Lower Africa?’

Patrick leant against the mantelpiece. He doubted that this was the purpose of the call but the more Jim talked and the more he drank the farther they might get from his real purpose. ‘No,
I haven’t changed my mind. I don’t think it’s right.’ Jim shrugged as if he had nothing more to say. ‘I don’t know how I’d go about changing it,’
Patrick continued. ‘I suppose I’d start with education. See that all races have as many opportunities as the whites. That would take some time but it would be peaceful and universal. It
would be a real change.’

‘We have a great hunger for approval. All the time we want approval in everything. Maybe we’re so hurt when we don’t get it because we don’t really approve of
ourselves.’ Jim spoke quickly and continued to stare out of the window. ‘The point is, any serious change would mean giving up our way of life and we’re not going to do that.
Would you give up yours simply because the rest of the world says you’re wrong? It’s not as if they’re innocent. Give me a few million blacks to dump in sanctimonious Sweden and
I’ll give you racist Sweden. What’s more, this country feeds Africa. The blacks can’t get their crops in in time, can’t plant in straight lines, can’t harvest
properly.

Only the African could starve in Africa. Any other race would grow enough to feed half the world. We’d be feeding you if we were running it but if we had what you call a moral system
we’d be starving with the rest of them.’

Jim held up his hand as if to stop Patrick arguing. Patrick had made no move. ‘Imagine if overnight you had a majority of West Indians in Britain outnumbering you three or four to one and
a system of government that kept you on top. Most of them would be apathetic so long as they were comfortable but some of them would hate you because they’d sense that you hated them. A lot
of my countrymen, the working class ones, hate blacks – really, simply, completely hate them. It would be the same in your country. How many whites would vote themselves out of power and a
black majority in? If they did the civil service, the police force, the army – maybe not the air-force and the navy because blacks aren’t too hot on technology – would all be
black. And the government would be completely black because blacks vote for blacks like whites vote for whites. People want to be ruled by their own kind. Do you want to be ruled by a bunch of West
Indians? If you think you do, take a look at the West Indies. Who would you vote for?’

Jim moved into the middle of the room and faced Patrick. He held his glass in both hands. Patrick did not want an argument but wanted even more to avoid more personal topics. ‘It’s
not a question of who I’d vote for. It’s a question of the blacks having the same right to be represented as I have. That’s an absolute right; it’s not dependent upon
consequences. It’s the same with your blacks here. They have equal rights to your freedoms, or should have.’

Jim waved his hand. ‘Of course they should have, and they know it, those that think at all. But that’s not the point I’m making. You don’t see what I’m saying.
You’re like all these liberals, you talk in theory. I talk about what is.’

‘Theory shapes fact. Liberal values are no more theoretical than the system here. I mean, you claim a theoretical basis, naturally or divinely ordained, for white supremacy.’

Jim slapped his glass, spilling some of it. ‘That – all that’s shit. You might find a few who still say that but it’s just an excuse so that they can dress up their
loathing for blacks. That’s what it is, you see, loathing. It is universal. Even the Indians and Chinese. They’ve been here for generations – longer than some of the blacks
– they hate them too.’

‘Why?’

‘Why?’ Jim raised his eyes. ‘I don’t know why. I could list all sorts of reasons but they wouldn’t matter. Why don’t dogs like cats? Because they’re
different.’

‘But we’re not dogs and cats.’

‘True, but we’re not so far from them that we’re never like them. I don’t know why other races don’t like blacks. Maybe because blacks are more physical, because
they’ve got beautiful strong bodies. Envy and fear. Maybe that’s why.’

Patrick still spoke slowly, trying to sound relaxed. ‘Then if people didn’t think of themselves simply as bodies they wouldn’t envy or fear other bodies.’

‘But they are bodies, aren’t they? Very much so.’ Jim spoke quietly. He emptied his glass and pointed at the bottle on the table. ‘May I?’

Patrick nodded. ‘You’re wrong, nonetheless. It’s unjust and injustice is wrong. Everyone yearns for justice, you included. That’s why you talk about it so often, to
appear justified. Even the great slaughterers – Stalin, Mao – try to appear justified.’

Jim replaced the bottle heavily on the table and turned awkwardly. ‘Sure, but you’re still missing my point. We know what we ought to do. We don’t do it because we don’t
want to. It’s easy for you. You’re not going to bring up your children here. We are and we’re going to keep it as it is.’

He moved to the other end of the mantelpiece and leant against it. He put his arm along the top and turned his glass slowly in his hand. He looked relaxed.

Patrick turned to face him. ‘You’re still wrong, even leaving aside the moral issue. You’re wrong because you’re doomed, because it can’t last. The world has turned
against what you stand for. You’ll be forced to change.’

‘Who by? The Russians maybe. Sure, they’ve got the political will and muscle but they wouldn’t be doing it for moral reasons. They don’t give a damn about blacks.
They’d only do it for their own advantage. You and your kind, you’ll never force us. You’re not going to kill hundreds of thousands just so that you can make a moral point when
the immorality is no threat to you. You’re never going to do that, are you? Eh? How many deaths is a moral point worth?’ His dark eyes half closed. He drank again and moved closer along
the mantelpiece, then held up his free hand in an exaggerated, stagey manner. ‘Look – we’re born, we live – comfortably if we’re lucky – and we die – not
too uncomfortably if we’re lucky. What else is there?’ He closed his eyes and lowered his head. ‘When I speak like this I wonder why I feel about Joanna as I do. It’s funny
to have feelings and beliefs so different.’

In the pause that followed Patrick could hear the hum of the fridge from the kitchen.

‘I know about it,’ Jim continued. ‘She told me.’

Patrick swallowed some whisky. ‘What did she tell you?’

Jim looked up. ‘When she told me she was going to have lunch with you I knew.’ He held up his hand again. ‘Don’t misunderstand me. She doesn’t go jumping into bed
with everyone. It’s just that when she said she was going to have lunch with you I knew – I just knew immediately – how it would end. I saw her this evening and I knew I was
right. She didn’t lie to me. I didn’t ask her. There was no need. She knew I knew. We didn’t even talk about it.’

Patrick felt like telling him that nothing had happened, as if that would make a difference, but he was ashamed of the idea.

‘I knew you hadn’t gone back to the embassy and I guessed why.’

‘How did you know?’

‘My job. I told you, we look after you people.’

‘Check on us?’

Jim drank again. ‘Was she here when I brought your cheque back?’

‘Yes.’

Jim nodded very slightly. ‘Funny, you set out to do one thing when all the time there’s something else going on which makes what you do seem completely different – afterwards,
when you know about the other thing.’

Patrick again heard the hum of the fridge. He had nothing to say. To apologise would be insulting and insincere. Being brazen would be the same. The pause lengthened. He saw there were tears
running down Jim’s face. He hoped at first that it might be sweat but knew that it was not. Jim looked past him rather than at him, making no effort to wipe his tears.

‘Why’ – Patrick swallowed at the wrong moment and had to clear his throat – ‘why didn’t you try to stop her?’

‘You can’t change people, you can’t make them different. It’s like all that I was saying earlier. People do what they want first and then justify it. She wanted you. I
hope she enjoyed it.’ He spoke quietly and looked again at Patrick, the water standing in his eyes. ‘No, I don’t. I hope she didn’t enjoy it. I hope she didn’t like
it.’